


Interrogations

by Captain_Revo



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie: Star Trek Nemesis (2002), Romulans, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 18:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20119417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Revo/pseuds/Captain_Revo
Summary: Set in 2398, Garak has been captured after a secret mission is compromised.





	Interrogations

Garak slowly opened his eyes. The light was piercing, sending waves of pain through his skull. He squinted and blinked, trying to let his eyes adjust, knowing they never would, for cardassians had an intolerance of bright light, as well his captures knew. His surroundings were damp and cold, causing him to shake slightly. The reek of mould and what was likely rotten flesh filled his nasal cavity. The restraints on his hands, which were uncomfortably forcing his arms behind his back, were chaffing and cutting into his flesh. His feet were also strapped to the chair tight. He was helpless. He looked around the room but it was sparse and grey, save for the light in his face. His left side ached profusely. He had a vague memory of being hit there by some kind of disruptor blast before blacking out at the meeting sight. He hoped the smell of rotting flesh was not his own. 

He kept on blinking through the pain, and could see shapes emerging in the light. The form of two shadowy beings emerged like demons on either side of a central lamp a metre of so in front of him. He could not quite make out their faces. Their size and smell suggested romulans. After spending some time on Romulus he had grown accustomed to the odour of them. It was hard to describe but also hard to forget. It could of course have been vulcans, their distant cousins, but something told him restrictive interrogation techniques wasn't exactly their style. 

He had been close to the Romulan border, or at least what was left of the border. The Hobus supernova that destroyed the planets Romulus and Remas had sent the Empire into chaos, before its inevitable collapse. The klingons had wasted little time in annexing several systems that had been in dispute for over a hundred years. The Breen had also turned their eye towards several of their worlds. Despite being on the losing side of the Dominion war they had suffered relatively few losses, and had come out of it in a much stronger position than of the other galactic powers had. While they had been cautious after the peace treaty signing not to provoke another conflict, and could not stand up to the combined power of the alliance, the dissolution of the empire had turned the stability of the Alpha and Beta quadrants upside down. They had become much bolder in recent years, and this had left what remained of the old Imperial Guard and the Tal Shiar operatives still clinging to the delusion the Empire would endure, fighting a number of defensive wars they could ill afford to wage. 

His mission on behalf of the Detapa Council was supposed to be top secret, but cardassian security was hardly airlock tight these days. He had also made many enemies over the years, who would happily sell him out for less than a slip of latinum. The thought that he had been betrayed was very likely. Had his orders been leaked, then the Romulans would have made every effort to capture him. It was hard to imagine they ever would have stumbled upon him by chance. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as he felt a burst of pain serge through his body. It was excruciating, leaving his chest tight as he struggled to regain his breath. A cortical device had been attached to his head, he could feel the slight weight of it now. It could no doubt trick the brain into believing he was experiencing pain in any part of his body. Garak knew this because he had used them himself. It lacked the personal touch of the type of interrogation he used to perform, but highly effective.

"Oh yes, thank you" he said, sarcastically. "I was beginning to get bored. A good electrocution really sets me up for the day."

"You are Elim Garak." came the voice to the right, stoic and dry. Garak still struggled to see his face.

"No, my name is Quark. I'm afraid you have the wrong man." he replied. A second jolt of intense pain formed in his knees, like being struck by hammers.

"Do not lie to us." said the second voice, a woman this time.

"Madam," he said putting unnecessary emphasis on the word, "I have never... told a lie in my life." he lied, wheezing through the pain. "Who are you, what do you want with a simple tailor?"

"We ask the questions, Mr. Garak. Do you know why you are here?" the first voice asked again, never wavering in tone.

Of course he did, but were was the fun in admitting that? "I guess my shuttle to the Risian resort got diverted, which reminds me have you seen my luggage? My swimwear was brand new and I would hate to have lost it. It has the image of a taspar on them. You can't miss it."

"Your reputation precedes you, yet I expected better than feeble attempts at humour." the first voice replied, not a hint of emotion creeping through, as he pressed the remote to the cortical device again. This time Garak let out a cry as the pain was located around his groin. '_Okay Garak, time to stop running your mouth', _he thought to himself. "Do you know why you are here?" said the shadowy voice once more.

"I have a fair idea." he said quietly.

"Tell us the location of the cube." the woman asked, a ripple of impatience in her voice. Garak knew she was not as skilled as her colleague. She had already given up the existence of the cube through frustration rather than forcing him to admit it freely. 

"I heard you already had a cube."Garak replied quickly. "How greedy can two romulans be?" There was silence. '_Ahh_,' he thought. '_Wondering how I know about your little operation are we?' _There were rumours circulating for years that the Romulans had been experimenting with Borg technology. Retrofitting ships, updating their weaponry, creating super soldiers, but it had all been speculation until a few months ago when a cargo ship transporting supplies to the Talwath system had been damaged by a plasma storm, and veered off course into a seemingly empty system. They had just taken enough scans of the area to detect what appeared to be a derelict Borg cube. The cargo ship was destroyed shortly after, which officially was claimed to be because of damage from the storm, but no doubt at the disruptors of a warbird, but it had sent back its logs via subspace just in time. Logs that had found its way to Garak's associates. 

"You work for the Detapa Council. Do not deny it." she demanded.

"Why would I deny it. Everyone needs their pants hemmed occasionally, even politicians. It's difficult to see your pants with this light in my eyes but I've seen romulan fashion and I'm ready to help in any way I can." He genuinely meant that. Romulan fashion was a disaster. Those shoulder pads gave him nightmares. 

"Not as a tailor, but as a spy." she snapped. "You were sent to Qualor Two. You were to meet with a romulan dissident about top secret information." she was starting to become impatient with his impudence. Garak's sight was starting to improve. he could just make out the features of his captors. The man on the right was tall, rigid, his face was gaunt and bony. The woman, didn't seem romulan at all. Her hair was light, her eyebrows less angular, her features were human.

"Well, forgive me for saying so but it hardly seems top secret if any common dissident can get the information. Bottom secret would be more ac-" Another blast of pain rippled through his body. Garak had spent years trained to resist torture, even to the point where he took a perverse pleasure out of it, but even this was wearing a little thin. 

_'Perhaps it was time to humour them'._ "Okay, okay, please no more. I beg you." he whimpered. 

"Who was your contact?" said the man. '_Good_,' Garak thought. '_They don't have her'._

"His name is... his name is.... Tre'tal." he said, trying to make it sound reluctant that he would give up the name. "He lives on the third planet in the Gasko system. That's... all I know, I swear"

"Based on your history, your previous occupation as an Obsidian Order agent, and this interrogation alone, I suspect you are lying to us." said the male Romulan. 

"I enjoy a good lie as much as the next man, but really want is the point? You have me restrained and at your mercy, and I'm not going anywhere. I might as well tell you the truth."

"By all means, I'm all ears." came the reply.

Garak, for the life of him couldn't resist the opportunity. "Well, that much about your people is obvious."

"This is pointless," she said slamming what sounded like a PADD onto a desk. "Kill him and be done with it."

He shook his head. "Leave him with me, I will get the information you require."

"Be quick about it." I'm returning to the _Vrenak. _Contact me when you have something." with that, she stormed out of the interrogation room. 

"Just the two of us. How romantic." Garak quipped. "But you haven't told me your name." 

The romulan took a step forward. "And why would I provide you with the advantage of my name?"

"You have so many advantages already. I thought you might like to share so we can grow closer." he smiled suggestively, half trying to get under his skin, half genuinely sincere. Garak admired any man who could conduct an effective interrogation. The good romulan was giving nothing away.

The Romulan raised his hand to his face and began stroking his chin. "Perhaps your bravado comes from the transponder underneath your fingernail. The one you tried to activate when you first woke up. Rest assured we deactivated it." He could see Garak slump back into his chair. "No one is coming to save you. You will die in this room at the time of my choosing." his words cold and callus.

Garak allowed a flash of anger to cross his face. He swore at him in cardassian. Something about the legitimacy of his mother. 

For the first time his captor actually chuckled. "I've heard this all before from countless people, Mr. Garak. None of them got what they wanted. I've kept prisoners alive for years under careful torture. This device," he said tapping the cortical implant on his forehead, "doesn't actually do any cellular damage. It just makes you think you're being injured. I can torture you forever. Like so." He pressed the button again on a higher setting. The pain was unbearable. "I know exactly who you are Mr. Garak, I know what you did in your past life, I know what you are capable of. I will not provide you with a shred of information. I will however provide you with pain." He tapped the controls again sending further burst of vicious pain all through his body. Garak screamed in agony. Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds past before he finally stopped. It felt like every nerve ending was on fire. How we wished for the Obsidian Order device that turned pain into pleasure was still active. His own stupidity had robbed him out that decades ago. 

"That....was.... extremely.... unpleasant." he said extenuating every word, taking deep breaths and trying to centre himself. 

"You are clearly very adept at enduring pain." he said, almost impressed. 

"Some consider pain to be erotic," he said gasping for breath, "but flattery wont work either, my pointy eared friend." he let a small smile creep across his lips despite the incredible pain he was in. 

"What about power. Mr. Garak? You clearly know of our work. The Romulan Empire could share its secrets with Cardassia. 

"There is no more Romulan Empire." he snapped back.

"The Romulan Empire," he said loudly, "has lasted for over three thousand years and will continue unending. I can not say the same for the Cardassisn Union. Break yourself free of the Federation occupation of your world. I know they don't call it an occupation, but you see as well as I that they are changing your world into just another one of their homogeneous colonies. A puppet that can never hurt them again. Cardassia was a proud race once, now look at you; weak, subservient, and pathetic." he said appealing to the famous cardassian ego. It was no secret that Garak was displeased with the Federation being on Cardassia. It was true that they need help to rebuild their world after the Dominion slaughtered eight-hundred million cardassians, but the very essence of who they were was gone. Perhaps it deserved to die for what his people had done, but it was still hard to see his once proud people reduced to children begging for scarps at the galactic table.

Garak looked up into the eyes of his captor. The romulan could see his resolve starting to break. 

"What can you offer us?" he asked. 

"The ability to rebuild your people's strength, to become a force again in the Alpha Quadrant."

"Tell me how." he said eagerly. 

For the first time the romulan smiled. Every man has his breaking point, his price. Garak was no different. "We are developing a nanite weapon. It is capable of infecting an entire planet. The Borg cube that we discovered had plans on it for mass assimilation. We can modify the weapon to fire nanites, not to assimilate, but to infect and ultimately pacify a population. Make them susceptible to our commands, allow us to execute entire regions with one click of a button. It is the ultimate weapon of control." he said, a wave of excitement crossed his face just thinking about it. "Our two people can reshape the balance of power, to become what we once were." 

_'Thank you for the information'_. Garak pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. A small pouch burst, releasing a compound into his mouth that he quickly swallowed. "You need the location of the second cube." You can't complete the weapon with what you have, can you?"

"Help us Mr. Garak, and we will help free your people from the yoke of the Federation." he said softly, drawing a step closer. It was true that the Cardassia he knew was dead, and that the Federation had sunk its insidious teeth his homeland. His Cardassia had allowed greed and power to turn in into a wasteland. He was not here to repeat paste mistakes.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he muttered, stalling for time.

"You don't, but your alternatives are not encouraging." came the reply. Garak knew full well he would die the moment he revealed its location. He had told him of his plans, and was now a threat. 

Garak lowered his head as if mulling over the opportunity. The sound of an energy blast was heard from outside, taking one of the cell's occupants by surprise. The romulan turned his heard sharply, then back to Garak. A second blast was heard before the sound of someone grunting and hitting the floor, a third caused the door to slide open in a shower of sparks like a fountain of stars. The interrogator reached desperately for his disruptor pistol, but a flash grenade was thrown into the room. Garak squeezed his eyes tightly shut, yet his captor did not. He was dazed and confused before a fourth blast struck him in the chest sending him crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap. A female romulan, dressed in slender black clothing, wearing body armour around her chest, stepped through the doorway. "Hope I didn't interrupt anything?" came the welcome sound of her voice, as she slung the disruptor rifle over her shoulder.

"Not at all, my dear, we were just getting to know each other." he said looking at the stunned interrogator at his feet. "In fact he was just starting to open up to me." he said cheerily, a wicked smile creeping across his lips. 

"This was an unnecessary risk you took, Garek. They could have killed you had you waited any longer." she tutted disapprovingly, stepping over the body.

He let out a little gasp. "Where's the fun in life without risk? You sound like Doctor Bashir, always looking to play it safe." which reminded him he must send him a subspace message telling him of his little adventure. The good doctor always loves a daring spy tale, and this one would actually be true for a change. He's probably have to embellish the escape to make it more exciting, and he didn't want the Federation to know about the Borg cube's location, at least not yet. 

He would have liked the name of the traitor, but that will have to wait. Minister Natima Lang had long suspected one of the Detapa council was secretly in league with the Tal Shiar. They had known for some time that secret information was being leaked. This was the perfect opportunity to find out what the Romulans wanted with that cube, and to locate the traitor in their midst. All they had to do was fabricate some intelligence about another derelict cube, and use one of his underground contacts from his time on Romulus when he posed as a gardener, to make them believe it was he who was providing her with the location. The traitor in the council would then pass the information on to his romulan masters who would act quickly to stop the information falling into the hands of those disgruntled citizens who had grown tired of the military's machinations of secrecy and conquest.

Now that he had his prize he can get all the information he needs. It was true that he could have signalled her earlier, and saved himself some pain, but he could not run the risk he would commit suicide over being captured, and then the agony he had endured would have been for nothing. At least now he knows what they are planning. 

"I hope you got what we needed?" she asked, curiously. 

"Enough for the moment, but you interrupted the back massage he was about to give me." he retorted.

She rolled her eyes. "Let's get a move on. Out shuttle is in low orbit, but we still need to dodge a few warbirds before we are clear." she said freeing him from his restraints. She took off the cortical device and slid it into her pocket. The repugnant smells and cold temperature immediately went. '_Fascinating', _he thought, they had used the device to alter his senses too. He would have to remember that little trick. He checked his side where he was shot to make sure there was no open wounds. Fortunately it was just a graze.

"Good job your secondary transponder worked." she said, freeing his feet. 

"Indeed." he said rubbing the life back into his hands and wrists. He knew the romulans would locate the obvious one in his fingernail, but the second was almost impossible to track. He had swallowed a liquid earlier that would coat the lining of his stomach, and on its own is untraceable, but once combined with the compound in the pouch would create a low radiation signal that could be tracked, if you knew what to look for. As Chief O'Brien once said 'It will light you up like a Christmas tree.' Garak didn't know what a Christmas tree was, some form of luminous plant that absorbed sunlight and refracted it back, he assumed, but he was definitely 'lit up' to his colleagues' sensors. Despite no longer working for the Obsidian order, and its eventually collapse at the hands of the Dominion, he still took a great deal of pride in his training that he could outsmart the Tal Shiar at any time. "Shall we depart?"

"Computer, three to transport." she said, as they dispersed in a flash of green light, leaving only an empty room.

A day had passed. The romulan slowly opened his eyes, his head pounding from the heavy stun setting, he looked around to find himself in a cardassian brig. The lights dim and the temperature hot. Garak smiled at him from across the room, separated by the slight shimmer of a forcefield. 

"I hope you find your accommodations comfortable, Na'ven." she said, the words slithering out of his mouth. 

He took a moment to gather his surroundings. "How do you know my name?" he asked, to his credit showing no sign of fear.

Garak laughed. "My dear Sub-Commander Na'ven. I've known it since before we ever met. You don't think I allowed myself to be captured without knowing who my hosts would be? I was impressed with your efforts to get me to talk. You show a lot of promise. Now shall I show you how to perform a real interrogation?" he said picking up a sharp instrument on the table by his side. The faintest hint of panic crept across his former captor's face. Garak did not consider himself a cruel man. In all his interrogations he drew no pleasure from hurting people. The fun was obtaining the information that he required. The Sub-Commander was doing his job and Garak held no ill will towards him. But now Garak had a job to do. One he would do expertly. "Let's start with your friend Sela, I know she has been heading up what is left of the Tal Shiar, and has her fingers in some very interesting projects. I want to know everything you do about her current objectives, her base of operations, everything going on inside that cube, and not forgetting who was it that told you of my mission." he let out a big grin before slowly and deliberately saying, "And please be thorough, we have all the time in the world."

**Author's Note:**

> I used the new Star Trek: Picard trailer as inspiration for the setting. This is likely to make some elements of the story make no sense once the show actually airs.


End file.
